Due to the rise of e-book readers lately, we have decided to purchase and play with an Amazon Kindle. I chose the Kindle since it is the apparent leader in the e-book market right now, but it looks like things might be changing with the increasing number of e-book readers entering the market. With the recent announcement of the Apple iPad, things are going to get interesting.
My idea with the purchase of the Kindle is to try it out, pass it around our staff and try to determine if there was a need we can 
meet with it. So far, staff seems to like it. Some of the ideas we are considering are purchasing magazine subscriptions for it or newspaper subscriptions. Or course, we have also considered the possibility of putting the latest bestseller on it. Unfortunately, all these options create their own problems. The magazine and newspaper subscriptions require wireless access (which is not an issue with the Kindle 2 in Montana, the only e-book reader that works wirelessly in Montana), and is only valid for one Kindle at a time. There are also some issues with Amazon's terms of use. The agreement states that purchased items cannot be distributed to a third party. This has not stopped some libraries from lending them out with purchased books on them.
I queried some libraries on their use of the Kindle or other e-book readers, and most of the responses I got back were that they had one or were getting one, but did not really know what to do with it. A couple of libraries were putting public domain titles on them for students and were reporting success with them.
I do not know what we will end up doing with the one that we have and I do not know if we will try any other brands or types. I think that with all the new devices coming and how many features they have, we will have to keep our eyes on them.
I can say that I do enjoy reading on the Kindle. The screen is very easy on the eyes, the battery life (a couple of weeks with the wireless turned off) is extremely nice and I had very little problems finding public domain books for it and loading them on the device. I found a nice little open source application called calibre (calibre-ebook.com) that converts title for me and loads them on a variety of devices.
I will continue to post about our Kindle. Until then, anyone else using a Kindle or other e-book reader? Any successes or failures?
Matt Beckstrom
Network Services Manager
Lewis & Clark Library, Helena, MT
Amazon Kindle: Photo credit: Brian J. Matis, Flickr
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